Immigration response

Well, I received my first critical response. I don’t enjoy debate. I am inclined toward right relationship and feel uncomfortable when someone is in disagreement with me (Regardless of whether that disagreement is the result of the other or I being wrong – both of which are sometimes the case).

One positive side of the critique is that it indicates someone is reading my reflection, but even more importantly, it allows an opportunity to go deeper in considering why there is disagreement. With that being said, and in gratefulness to “barncat” who offered me this opportunity to continue thinking, I would like to expand my reflection on immigration and surrounding issues. (Steemit is my first real attempt at social media, so if it is viewed as inappropriate to cite another writer let me know and I will eliminate this reference.) I am unsure whether the time it takes to write a response is worthwhile (whether Barncat and I will come to understand one another better or whether anyone else will even read this), but I suppose that is the reality of writing a blog. Most of the points below relate to “barncat’s” arguments brought up in the response to my last post; I would encourage you to read that post if this topic interests you.

I am suspicious of the tendency to only invoke rights in relation to “us”, and to focus on responsibilities of those that we don’t identify with (them). The notion of rights, as best I can tell, is rooted in the belief that all people are born with equal value. The Globalism that often is decried as dangerous and frightening led to the birth of the declaration of human rights, which I think is at least an extraordinary effort to affirm that all people are valuable (we are our sister's and brother's keepers). The declaration of human rights reasons that if you value a person you would believe they have the right to leave their home to avoid oppression, and lack of opportunity. In other words if we value people, we would believe they have a right to escape a hopeless situation to make a better life for themselves and their families (and in some cases to keep themselves and their families alive). Admittedly, this causes a tension because every right carries with it a responsibility for others to respect that right. Does the burden of honoring that right ask too much of us? Perhaps, however, a basic ethical teaching that appears in almost every religious tradition requires that “we treat others as we would want to be treated.” Were we the stranger or the foreigner living in a hopeless situation, would we want another to welcome us and offer safe refuge? Of course we would. The brilliance of the golden rule is that it teaches us to recognize the other as a person like ourselves. If we only value ourselves, then the value of the other will be dependent on how they impact us. This leaves us vulnerable to manipulation as suffering will be selectively invoked to support an argument. But putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes lets us see a set of interests beyond our own.

I believe it is appropriate to acknowledge those who have been victimized in crimes committed by immigrants, but if in our calculus we leave out the suffering that is caused by policies that don’t allow people to escape situations of suffering then we are not rational. In other words, if we point to the suffering and vulnerability that results from a generous policy, but ignore the suffering created by harsh and strict adherence to the law then our argument is inconsistent. At the very least if we value lives there would be extreme discomfort and tension in our support for these harsh (though we might reluctantly argue necessary) policies. The anger that invoking suffering among undocumented peoples ignites in those who support our current zero-tolerance approach would not exist if there was an honest effort to value those outside our group; there would at least be evidence of inner conflict and grappling.

If acknowledging the suffering our policies cause for people who are not from America, and therefore questioning those policies & if a failure to absolutely embrace patriotism and nationalism makes me a globalist and aligns me with Satan (which I assume is brought up in the critique to suggest a view in opposition to Jesus’ view), then I question where Jesus would fit in this conversation. I am not comfortable invoking Satan as I fear it is an irrational shortcut to win an argument (i.e. Satan is evil, satan is on that side, therefore, that side is evil). I think there is a reasonable concern that a globalist approach can become oppressive, but a naïve patriotism & nationalism can also be a source of oppression. When love of nation, ideology, etc., leads us to assume the righteousness of our interests & those interests demand oppression of others, we will be forced to ignore those our policies hurt. Unquestioned globalism, nationalism, and patriotism, can all lead to their own forms of idolatry (assuming the rightness of one’s understanding of national or global interests and ignoring the ways in which those interests may cause suffering). However, I would argue a globalistic spirituality is anything but satanic (again, if by satanic one means opposed to Jesus’ teachings). A globalistic spirituality believes the path to well-being is a greater commitment to valuing of ALL people. The alternative is an “us and them worldview” that believes well-being is achieved through defeating the evil other. Jesus’ life fundamentally undermines this paradigm, as anyone in his world whose vision was “us and them” oriented would have found Jesus with them. Those who ended on the cross were not identified with by anyone (us and them thinkers would have hated or ignored Jesus). Jesus invites this radical identification with the other in the Last Judgment (Mt 25) when he suggests that his ongoing presence will be in the least of his people (the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner, and the sick). Jesus points toward identification with the other as the path to following him (and if one takes him literally, which I don’t think is always necessary, indicates the failure to respond to the other’s hurting is a path to Hell).

Love is a virtue that brings people together; tragically, Jesus has too often been read through a lens that he explicitly taught against. He has been read through the “us and them” lens that put him on the cross. His understanding was that love (willing the good of the other) should be extended to everyone, even one’s enemy. This spirituality invites us to get to a place where we understand we are all family, all connected, and all valued.

Returning to immigration, another significant problem is a lack of basic awareness of ways in which we contributed to the instability that continues to fuel the need for immigration. One of the favorite targets of “the immigrants are dangerous criminals” narrative is MS-13. Few acknowledge the history of MS-13 and that many of its roots are in the United States of America. In 1980s El Salvador, where we were funding a war against a peasant population fighting for their basic rights, many people were forced to leave their homes to escape the indiscriminate violence (mostly by their government, but also at times by guerillas). Because we were supporting that government and its military, we could not grant these terrified peasants asylum (we would have had to acknowledge the truth of what this war was doing in El Salvador), so they came here illegally where they had to live secretly in slums. Not surprisingly, that existence bred some undesirable results, including development of gangs. In the aftermath of years of conflict, these gangs were able to thrive in their war torn homeland. When MS-13 is invoked, it actually can serve as a warning to those who think refusing hospitality will lead to greater security for us in the long run.

Recently my father-in-law defended our policy, arguing that Ohio immigrants were being arrested and sent away for the same reason as John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk was an immigrant to the US accused (in his old age) of misrepresenting his identity and actually being a guard from a Nazi death camp. As a result of these allegations he was extradited to stand trial in Europe (to my knowledge the question of his guilt was never definitively answered). I said it was in no way a 1-to-1 comparison and if there was evidence that the immigrants arrested harvesting crops had been members of Salvadoran death squads, I would readily support them being extradited to face justice in their own country. Ironically, those who commanded the death squads were often welcomed legally into our country as they had aligned themselves with us and defended our political preferences while brutalizing their own population.

The way our support of repressive regimes in Latin America has fueled instability there is not the only immigration driving reality we ignore. Our Free trade agreements also undermined the capacity of millions of small farmers in Latin America to provide for themselves. Because countries could no longer subsidize their farmers, millions of people had to sell their land, exchanging the degree of independence that owning land brought and replacing it with dependence and vulnerability (increasing some people's freedom to access resource left many in a more dependent & less free state). The philosophy that brought this about involved a belief that there should be no regulations placed on the movement of capital. Corporations and foreign nations were free to profit from developing world resources. However, isn’t there something wrong with a system that allows capital, resources, and wealth to flow freely, but limits the freedom of people to follow that?

We don’t have the patience for wisdom. We prefer the narrative of good guys and bad guys. This is why anything that undermines patriotism and nationalism is so frightening for so many people. Patriotism and nationalism, as popularly practiced, encourage the assumption of our intrinsic rightness. They let us begin with the assumption that our apparent interests are righteous. They don’t confront us with the truth of what our interests do down the river. They make it permissible to march out lives that are protected by a preferred policy, while ignoring the lives hurt by it. This one-dimensional approach allows us to believe that Satan/evil is on the other side. The truth is all sides are filled with hurting people who are trying to deal with their hurt and fear. There is a place for nations to consider the needs of their own people, but I would argue there is also space to consider the needs of the rest of humanity.

Invoking the cost of immigration is again reasonable, but it is strange to me that financial cost is only invoked in this country in policies that help people (we can’t help because it costs too much). First, this shows that our morality is much more transactional (economic) than love-based (love is gift because it is based on valuing the other – we see them as a sister and brother, cost is at best an after-thought when a sister or brother is hurting). Second, where is the questioning of a prison system and military-industrial system that causes incredible suffering? In both cases, industries are enriched by government spending (and in turn use that wealth to promote policies that see this spending increase). However, is it worth it for us to go deeper into debt further enriching the military-industrial complex by sending military aid to Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record is abysmal and is currently carrying out indiscriminate attacks in Yemen (leaving a nation suffering and many innocent lives lost)? Has the devastation mass incarceration has done to impoverished areas, and the high costs of this been worth the taxpayer money (I suspect mass incarceration of undocumented peoples is a costly venture, and I have no doubt that incarceration of agricultural workers in my state has not left me more secure or safe, though I’m sure my tax money is enriching someone who in turn shares it with politicians and media across the spectrum to be sure that such policies don’t change)? As was suggested earlier, if it is appropriate to invoke those hurt by undocumented people, then we must invoke everyone hurt by every policy. Because every policy helps some and hurts others I understand that it would be preferable to ignore those our side hurts. We prefer simplistic answers that support our assumption of our own righteousness, and spare us the painful tension that requires wisdom. Right relationship always involves some tension. Valuing another, places limits on our freedom to do whatever we want because relationship demands we respect and value the other (and sometimes it profits us not to). Ideally, the dance of relationship leads us to a middle space where both sides are giving and receiving. This dance does not fit neatly into the desire to view ourselves as the righteous ones, and instead leaves us in the humble space of those who are constantly hungering, thirsting, and searching to live rightly.

I wish I had more time to develop and polish this response. I think generalizations about the criminality of Latin American immigrants are inconsistent with my experience and I would question some of the statistics suggesting these immigrants tend toward criminality (outside of the fact that they were unable to immigrate legally) and immorality, but I don’t have time to develop a response to that.

I acknowledge there is no simple solution to immigration. That fact does not mean it is not imperative for responsible and conscientious citizens to think about what our policies are doing to human beings. Ignoring the other is a path to becoming an oppressor. It’s easy to believe that power to assert our interests and preferences is the logical path to well-being, but that is a path to one-sided relationships. It is not logical to believe that others will value our lives if we don’t actively work to value theirs. The challenge is that in most disputes there is an endless capacity for all sides to point to the ways in which the other hasn’t valued them. Selfishness values people after they value us, love simply values people. It’s tempting to think such selfishness is logical, but it seems to me a world of people looking out only for themselves and their group is a world of conflict.